MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The Californian weather for World Superbike Superpole was typically sunny with clear skies. Eugene Laverty and Markus Reiterberger were both fit and they were joined by American wildcard J. D. Beach. 

After one lap, Toprak Razgatlioglu knocked Jonathan Rea off provisional pole with a 1'23.079 while Loris Baz crashed his Yamaha before setting a lap time. Alvaro Bautista set the third quickest time and headed straight back to the pits. The Loris Baz crash brought out the red flags as the Corkscrew couldn't be cleared quickly enough. 

After the restart, Michael van der Mark crashed at turn four as Alvaro Bautista lept to the top of the list with a 1'23.046, but a lap later, Jonathan Rea set a 1'22.964 on the race tyre. At the halfway mark, it was time for a cuppa as everyone pitted in for the fancy qualifying tyre.

Jonathan Rea set a 1'21.876 on the quicker tyre, knocking a second off his lap on a race tyre, but he didn't try to get a second lap from the tyre. Alvaro Bautista got to within two tenths of Rea's provisional pole, but was punted down to third as Chaz Davies got within a hundredth of a second of Rea. With a minute left, the top three rows were settled, even though Bautista had enough tyre left for one more attempt that was just over a tenth off his best lap. 

Jonathan Rea held off the Ducatis of Chaz Davies and Alvaro Bautista to get his first pole position at Laguna Seca with Tom Sykes heading the second row ahead of Leon Haslam and Jordi Torres. Toprak Razgatlioglu couldn't make the qualifying tyre work for him and he's joined on the third row by Alex Lowes and Loris Baz, Baz having recovered from his Corkscrew crash with his team getting his bike back running in record time.

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